cruisentn

Hope it does. Sailed the Serenade once and it was outstanding. Won't be back on Carnival.

Does anyone know if Royal Caribbean is coming back to sail out of New Orleans?

I've had it with Carnival.

Thanks.

We've gradually started getting things we can USE. Towels, etc. Although I did buy one of those little puzzle houses in Belize where I could post on my Facebook that I

'Bought a house in Belize!'

What's your souvenir gig? I mean, you feel the need to buy something to bring home.

We took a bus trip, long hot bus trip, to the light house, climbed up and took some great pix there. The beach and the scenery is beautiful and the guide was great.

BUT....this is NOT a 'photo' safari.

Nothing at all remotely pertinent to photography.

It's a bus trip to a nice lighthouse on a beautiful beach which you can take photographs along the way if you choose.

Not bad, just not what we'd expected.

Is it a possiblity that Royal Caribbean may make a future decision to sail out of New Orleans again?

We're interested in some feedback on this as well.

The Carnival site gives all of their excursions great reviews.

Would like an unbiased review.

Thanks

Alcohol drinks...just round up and figure 10 bucks each.

Souvenirs...whatever you'd normally spend on a trip.

Spa stuff, massage, haircut, at least 100 bucks.

Meals (those not included) nice restaurant amount.

No prob.. :)

 

This is also RCI ship

 

 

Yes, I've already got my eyes on that one. :)

There is no Carnival Enchantment. Enchantment of the Seas is a Royal Caribbean ship.

 

Carnival does have older ship, but so is RCI. I prefer RCI, but lets be fair and compare apples to apples. Serenade needs to be compared to Legend, Spirit, Pride or Miracle. Same size and approx same age.

See how new I am! LOL.

went back to look at the side by side pix, it was the Carnival Sensation.

The Enchantment was anchored (or whatever it's called) beside us outside of Coco Cay....

Sorry, but thanks for that correction!

This seems to be an Apple vs. Android ongoing debate.

But, if I may, I am going to post some noobie observations:

One cruise and it was on the Royal Serenade of the Seas.

-We docked right beside the Carnival Enchantment in Nassau.

We were clearly a larger boat, that wasn't the pivotal point. The Enchantment simply looked old, poorly maintained and run down. Nowhere NEAR the amount of balcony rooms that we had. Our ship had dynamics, sexy curves and lotsa glass; a sleek and more modern appearance. Our lifeboats looked more substantial. We didn't have rusty spots.

It was like parking a Lamborghini beside of a Yugo.

That said, I have absolutely no idea what the inside of that old book was like. I only saw the frayed cover.

-I asked around on the frequent cruisers that I met on the RC boat and 100% of the people I asked said they were a lot more happy with the RC line than the Carnival line.

-I have friends that SWEAR by the Carnival line, although they've never even been on an RC boat.

-I know what I see on the news over the last year.

-I know that I couldn't get a Carnival boat to book our first cruise on that had a balcony room sailing out of N.O.

-I know I've read about more rocking boat/seasickness and loud noises and smokey atmospheres on Carnival. We experience NONE of these on our S.O.S trip.

These are just the new guy's observations into the RCC fanboy vs. the Carnival fanboy debate.

Oh... And we didn't buy any of the posed pictures by the fake backgrounds. Lol.

Made plenty, but with real backgrounds.

Sounds like you had a great time!

Just a note:

Your tips of $12.00 per day is divided among your attendant, waiter, ass't waiter and head waiter....not divided among ALL the crew! They do get an hourly wage, although it's not very much...sort of like waitstaff in a restaurant!

More than one staff told me that RC had recently done away with their hourly wage, so all they got was the gratuities (12.00 a day included).

That's all I know. And they said that RC had also make them pay their own airfare now. But, they said they loved their jobs!

And yes, we did have a great time!

Yes, they were right. You'll become addicted as we have already planned to sell our camper (that we haven't camped but twice in 2 years) and already planning the next cruise. Now, I'm going to answer my own questions that I had previously posted here. It might help some other noobie. This was a 7 night Serenade of the Seas from New Orleans to Key West, Coco Cay and Nassau.

1-No irons, it's a fire hazard. Send to laundry, let hang awhile or wear something else. You're on a cruise.

2-pocket knife was in suitcase and they never said a thing.

3-Read 2 mysteries, one a cruise mystery.

4-Deck plans and ship orientation was frustrating until we figured out what was going on. They do not leave you ship plans. You can get those at the Help Desk. But there are these huge electronic touch pads everywhere on board that update themselves and you can find anything you need to know there.

5-Cause of our new addiction? Mine is just being on a big massive boat slicing through beautiful water while it leaves behind the stresses of land and it's filled with quiet places, loud fun, good food, beautiful and clean surroundings, and i't s filled with happy human beings (crew and passengers) that reinstilled my faith in humanity. Left home just wanting to get away from all people but ended up making great friends. Therapy at sea. I also enjoyed the dynamics of the travel. Not stagnant like going to a condo or hotel. New places, new people, new music, new foods, new views. Allllll while you just nap, read, eat, workout and ride. wow.

6-The gym was A-M-A-Z-I-N-G. Very nice gym filled with Lifefitness equipment. On 11th floor bow so you can workout and see where you're headed. Nice walking track outside around pool and deck. Windy, but fun there. Steamroom and sauna and showers (male is all I saw lol) were perfect and comfortable with towels available everywhere. Very nice. I went to gym and steam room twice a day. lol.

7-How much money we spent? We spent $318.00 on board. 80 of that was for a wife's haircut because she didn't have time before we left. 30 for laundry. They did a thing on Wed where they left a bag and whatever you get in that bag costs 30 to be cleaned and brought back. I got 19 items in there. lol. Good deal. the rest was spent on drinks and souveniers on board. Oh and 50 on a cabanette on Coco Cay and that's TOTALLY worth the 50 for the both of us. Includes a ride from port to Barefoot beach, very quiet and secluded place, your cabanette is setup with two comfy lounge chairs, a big bucket of ice with two big bottles of water in it on a wooden table inside. Two floats and shuttle back to main part for lunch, shuttle back to beach and shuttle back to port. Drinks on board were like $8.00 a piece or so. We usually had a glass of wine or a margarita. **FYI**Anything that you buy on board is bought with your Seapass and tips are AUTOMATICALLY placed on the tab, no matter if you buy one or ten drinks. If you give them more, that's up to you.

8-We had breakfast and lunch in the buffet and dinner in the main dining room. Normally, I detest buffets. These are not a typical 'buffet'. VERY good food, served cleanly and always nicely staffed.

9-They were wrong about one thing. I had plenty of money but was sooooooo underdressed and didn't take enough clothes. Suit was fine for formal night. But, shorts and a tshirt are NOT ok to wear in the main dining room at dinner on other nights. I did, cause that's all I took, except one pair of pants. I didn't expect to mix and mingle like we did so I didn't take nice khakis and "church" clothes. Men, take em.

Women wore nice pants and nice dresses to ball gowns on formal nights. Other than those evenings..it's shorts and tshirts all day. I was so underdressed I was uncomfortable at night at dinner and going to movie or stage show or to the Centrum to have a drink with our new friends.

10-Purell is everywhere.

11-We had cell service from NO for a long while. Then nothing until Key west and had cell service great there. Nothing on board unless you pay for it. Nassau had a wifi (3.00) in Starbucks. Nothing in Coco Cay. I tried the buying the wifi on board to check on the kids, but really it sucked and didn't work on my S4. Didn't want to login at their terminals that you buy cause I tried that two and screw24 (haha) was still logged in on Facebook on that pc so it's not cache cleaned. Not worth it. Logged out and only paid $.25 cause it was half price. Didn't miss not having a phone signal at all. Mandatory seclusion is ok sometimes.

12-What to put in a carry on? I used a back pack, camera, Tablet, deo, toothbrush. That's about it. some were in the hot tub by the time they got ON the ship. lol. We just wandered around a lot exploring.

13-Finally, tips. We paid gratuities up front, which is $12.00 a day per person. That is divided amongst ALL of the crew. They do not get anything else, no hourly wage. That said, we tipped our steward $20.00 when we left. He was ok. But, he didn't do anything outstanding. We didn't ASK him for anything extra like ice brought every night like some of our friends did. He cleaned our room and that was it. Barely saw him. He has 9 rooms and suites to keep up with. He was older and extremely hard to understand. Nice guy, but nothing outstanding at all. Not really communicative or encouraging. Just sort of distantly present and cleaned our room while we were gone....which, um..is his job. Nothing above at all. Our fiends had exceptional and above service by happy stewards which they tipped a couple of dollars a day. We did tip him 5 for bringing our 3 bags to our room which were there by about 5 pm. He was ok.

They're right! Cruising is addicting for me because it's an escape and time away from cellphones and grumpy, stressed out human beings.

Hopefully this will help some other person on their cruise decisions.

One of my favorite things to do was to stand up front, alone, on the bow on the 11th floor, in the 80 degree weather, as the cool wind hits my face, listen to Moby in my earbuds and just stare into the horizon where there is absolutely nothing....

except for the places we are going.

Royal Caribbean, and the serenade of the Seas.

Why not PC? To whom are you referring?

LOL, nobody in specific. Some may not think it good to carry on a pocket knife.

Thanks

Are there irons available? Or byoi? Or just let them press something if needed.

Thanks

This maybe not politically correct to ask here, but someone told me that on a recent Disney Cruise, they just let them on through to the ship with a pocket knife in his pocket.

?? That's ok??

You leave it in airplane mode even when turning on WiFi. In most ports there will be plenty of bars and cafés that will give you the password for the WiFi when you order something, even a CocaCola.

 

 

Autocorrect responsible for most typos...

Thanks everyone. So, if it's a port like Nassau or Key West, are there FREE cell signals there? Like VZW cell?

Thanks

To prevent roaming charges, do you just put your phone/tablet in Airplane mode when on board?

Then turn off and put on wifi when in port somewhere?

I think there is a wifi finder I need to download for finding wifi in ports.

Thanks!

Oh I'm not in a panic now that Someone told me they WILL get there. I'm real patient fellar. Ima get me a drank, prop my feet up and let some other man be daddy for awhile. :-)

Thanks trucker Dave. Heck I ain't gonna mess with all this then. Take what I don't wanna loose, My DSLR, my phone, a hat and a snack. I'm good.

Wow. Well, um....is it usual to just NOT get your bags to your room? Does that really happen? Or just doing all of this as a safeguard?

And, how long is it usually before your bags are delivered?

Thanks!

Carryon size? Is it ok to have a small roll on luggage? My digital camera and bag by itself is not small. So if I add a few more things, well... It's not a small bag.

Are there restrictions as to carry on/roll on size?.

That said I want to keep this simple and not carry a kitchen sink around.

Cruise documents, meds, change of underwear, extra shirt, bathing suit, cameras, iPods, chargers, books.

So, I'm looking at more of a ROLL on than a CARRY on then? LOL.

That's more stuff than I had originally thought, but then I don't want to loose anything valuable.

And mama said always wear clean drawers. :)

Cameras?

Electronics?

Laptops?

Things you might be afraid would get "lost"?

Underwear? toothbrush?

I mean, I guess they can loose luggage, but really, shouldn't it be on the ship if they misplace it?

It has to turn up on there somewhere. lol.

Back to point...

What's in YOUR carryon?

Thanks!